Featured Story

Volleyball teams digging pink and finding wins

ELEANOR P. LABROZZI PHOTO | The  2015 Shelter Island School volleyball team.
ELEANOR P. LABROZZI PHOTO | The 2015 Shelter Island School volleyball team.

Shelter Island School volleyball team’s regular season is drawing to a close. With playoffs extending into mid-November, there’s still lots of playing left to do, but with the cooler weather, suddenly it’s feeling like the postseason is right around the corner.

Junior Varsity
The JV team is enjoying their last few contests, even with illness and family commitments cutting our ranks to the bare minimum. On October 15 and 16, there was just six athletes suited up and ready to play.

The teams traveled to Hampton Bays to take on the the Baywomen, a C School with a good history.

The “Salty Six” — Sarah Lewis, Julia Labrozzi, Nichole Hand, Ella Mysliborski, Issie Sherman and Nicolette Frasco — more than held their own. They started quietly, dropping the first set 15-25 as tough-serving made it difficult to run our improving 3-hit offense.

The second set was much better, with Sherman calling for the ball and diving to the floor for exciting saves. Labrozzi also is really stepping up her offense; she scored a team-high six kills during the match. Shelter Island grabbed the second set 25-20.

The tiebreaker featured great scrambles showcasing grit and determination. Unfortunately the home team inched ahead, winning it and the match, 25-17, but the Blue and Gray held their heads high, proud of their excellent effort.

The next day the team was outfitted in pink jerseys for our annual “Dig Pink” and the pink streamers, white and pink balloons and colorful posters made it clear this was no ordinary match. Even the fans wore pink. Through buying concession sales and the purchase of pink ribbons inscribed with the names of loved ones a record $750 was donated to the Side-Out Foundation.

The nonprofit raises money through volleyball events and in turn awards grants to medical research organizations and entities dedicated to providing patient services for breast cancer patients and their families.

The match against the Greenport/Southold Clippers showed how far this team has progressed. The Salty Six were back at it, easily taking the first set 25-12. The second set featured more rallies, with Lewis setting a nice backset to right side Mysliborski for a kill. Hand and Frasco kept swinging from the middle and led the team in a sweep of the Clippers, winning the two final sets 25-16 and raising their league record to 8-1.

VARSITY
The varsity also faced Hampton Bays and Greenport/Southold this past week and learned some lessons: Measure of respect gained. Check. Dose of reality. Check.

Hampton Bays is always tough and Shelter Island hadn’t beaten them in recent memory. A defensive-minded team with a slower offense, they just keep getting the ball back over the net. It was a back and forth contest, in more ways than one.

Used to scoring points on service aces, we had to gain points in other ways since Hampton Bays held us to a 14.4 percent ace percentage, less than half of our normal tally. Our serving errors were an equal 14.4 percent, higher than our usual. Not quite up to speed, we dropped the first set 14-25.

The second set we got back on track with serving and adapted to their defense. Colibri Lopez was hitting and blocking well and Melissa Frasco began aggressively chasing down many balls. Facing a decent Baywoman block, Kenna McCarthy had to be creative with her sets. Even so, with the exception of the third set when we had twice as many kills as errors, the other four sets had a nearly even kill-to-error ratio. The second set featured a strong comeback from Hampton Bays but we held on for a 25-23 win. The third set, a 25-18 Island win, seemed to shift the tide in our favor and we began to relax, beginning to believe we could beat this larger school. But it wouldn’t be that easy.

Hampton Bays stormed to a 16-25 win in the fourth, forcing a tiebreaking 5th set.

Our first five-set match in at least five years was a test of wills. Long rallies with multiple attack attempts were commonplace.

Once they keyed on Amira Lawrence’s quick middle attack (10 kills), Margaret Michalak (9 kills) and Kelly Colligan (11 kills) swung hard on the outside. Emily Hyatt’s increasing confidence in our quick offense paid dividends. Serina Kaasik’s quietly effective defense also was important in sustaining rallies and matching Hampton Bays’ never-say-die effort. A point-by-point battle, we pushed to a 25-22 win, earning the grudging admiration of the Baywomen and learned a great lesson in making adjustments.

In addition to the Dig Pink festivities on October 16, it was also our last home game of the season. Greenport were guests at the traditional senior sendoff when younger playoffs talk about the seniors.  Colligan, Hyatt, Lopez, McCarthy, and Michalak were honored with touching and funny tributes, presented with roses and sent out in style.

The first set of the Greenport/Southold Clippers match featured all seniors all the time. The totally pink team more than held their own, winning 25-14. The second set, with our normal line-up in was a bit of a let down. Despite Greenport’s position as second in the league and poised as a spoiler, they are known to play hot and cold. They got hot as the Islanders got a bit cold.

Uninspired playing led to a close score throughout the set. With the previous day’s win fresh in their minds, there seemed to be no urgency on the part of the players and six missed serves allowed the Clippers to take the second set, 27-25, handing the Islanders their first set loss in the league all season. Stung, the team regrouped, and played with more focus, quickly shutting down the visitors with 25-9 and 25-10 sets to win the match and keep the undefeated league record intact.

The last week of regular season play will include the last league match against Port Jefferson, tied with Greenport for second place in the league. Port Jeff is always a tough place to play and we need to take that match seriously if we want to capture our seventh straight undefeated league championship. On Tuesday, October 21 we will face Shoreham Wading River in a non-league contest. With a couple of very tough hitters, they will challenge our defense, getting us battle hardened for the playoffs.